Looking back, we see 2018 was the year out-of-work Americans found a job and working Americans got a raise.

It was the year companies decided they didn’t have to abandon the U.S. to be competitive; they could invest in research and development and could re-shore jobs some had said would never come back.

While Democrats promise pie in the sky, Green New Deals and free medical care for everyone in the world, President Trump has already delivered real results for Americans.

And it is all the direct result of his America First agenda of tax reform, regulatory reform, trade reform and energy reform.

Immediately following the president’s tax cut, scores of businesses, from American Savings Bank to Wal-Mart and Starbucks, raised the starting wage for employees. Hundreds more gave their employees raises and bonuses.

And we’ve seen jobs return from overseas. Fiat-Chrysler is moving automobile factories back to Michigan from Mexico, and Apple computers committed $350 billion to manufacturing in the U.S. Foxconn, the Asian electronics giant, broke ground on a $10 billion plant in Wisconsin to make flat-screen displays for Apple and others.

The economy added 312,000 jobs in December, with an average monthly gain of 220,000 for the entire year. Wages rose 3.2 percent, tying October for the biggest surge since 2009, with the biggest gains going to the lowest-paid workers. The forgotten men and women are forgotten no longer.

Business activity is booming across the board.

Pharmaceutical companies are making investments in start-ups that will save lives as well as create more jobs. Eli Lilly, for example, is pursuing novel therapies to fight cancer by targeting genetic mutations and using the body’s own immune system to attack tumors.

A few years ago, American drug companies were investing in innovative tax avoidance schemes rather than innovative drugs. They were buying foreign rivals and moving offshore to take advantage of lower tax rates in so-called inversion deals.

Then President Trump’s tax reform cut the U.S. rate and allowed businesses to repatriate overseas profits tax-free. That’s given American companies a reason to stay put and do what they do best rather than hire creative accountants.

Assurant, a Fortune 500 insurance giant, had planned to move offshore through its acquisition of The Warranty Group, Bermuda-based insurers. But following the tax cut, Assurant will remain a U.S. corporation. The change in plans “reflects the net benefits from enacted U.S. tax legislation,” the company announced.

Democrats’ go-to solution for any problem is a new law. If businesses want to escape high taxes and regulations, liberals will demand a new law to stop them. Then they’ll pass another law telling them what they have to pay employees. And how much paid vacation to give them. And what to charge customers. And so on and so forth, with squadrons of bureaucrats fanning out to flog the laggards.

Meanwhile, President Trump has managed to keep companies here and bring Americans more jobs, higher wages and innovative products by shrinking the administrative state’s footprint rather than expanding it.

His strategy of reducing taxes, regulations and fixing lopsided trade deals is more effective than hiring more government bureaucrats.

That’s the American Way, and in 2018 we saw that it’s working great – again.